With his leather-covered arm casually circling her shoulders, Roxie’s heart raced out of control.
Her designated protector gave the appearance of nonchalance, yet she wasn’t too dumbstruck to notice the hand closest to his gun was kept free, as she stared at the broad-palmed hand cupping her shoulder.
Dark gold hairs softened the wide sinewy shape. His fingers were long, blunt-tipped, more like a carpenter’s than a gunman’s.
As she glanced across at the other armed men, she wondered if his hand was large enough to hold his life as well as her own.
“This is ma petite amie.” Girlfriend. He directed the conversation to the fat man. “If you’d waited where we originally arranged, her being here wouldn’t be a problem. But if it bothers you, Zukah, speak up.”
Roxie was scared out of her wits, yet as she was pressed close to his side as he uttered his unequivocal statement, and though the situation more closely resembled a funeral than a wedding, she wanted to say, “Or forever hold your peace.”
Though trembling inside, she felt grateful this man had ranged his overwhelming presence on her side.
By the tension in the air, she could tell the game they’d been playing when she arrived hadn’t been going too well.
She mentally crossed her fingers.
Dear God, please let her be on the side of the angels.
The Algerian made a grudging concession. “As long as she doesn’t interfere in matters that aren’t her concern, she’d better stay.”
Angels, she decided were in a minority of one.
She looked up, hoping for reassurance as the big guy’s fingers squeezed her arm to attract her attention.
“You’ve always known what I was, chérie,” he said, “Though you tried to ignore it. Now the blinkers are off, tell me once more.”
Utter confusion made her stammer, “T-tell you what?”
“Say, I still love you, Mac.” Wow, she knew his name.
Her heart climbed back to her throat, fluttering in panic.
Uh-uh, this wasn’t the time to be chickenhearted. She would say the words as if her life depended on it.
Which it just might?
Fear of failure sent her pulse thundering in her ears as his face lowered to hers. Massive shoulders loomed, shaded her.
Unpredictably, his open jacket seemed like a place she could hide. Her throat felt bone-dry, unused. “I still love you, Mac.”
“That’s better,” he murmured.
The touch of his mouth was cool, dry and almost impersonal. Yet too much to ask of synapses scattered by feeling herself being lifted as if she were no bigger than a doll.
Her hand clutched a fistful of supple leather to make it look real as well as for support. They were being watched.
She clung as she’d never clung to a man before, praying her association with this man named Mac wouldn’t make her continue the wild, scary ride that had begun with staring down the muzzle of a gun.
Mac was fit to be tied.
It wasn’t often he allowed himself be cornered, and until now he had never been locked into an impossible situation with a woman hardly big enough to be an armful.
He’d brought it all on with his insistence he meet with Zukah’s boss. His mistake was evident the moment the Algerian agreed, saying, “You will of course consider yourselves our guests.”
Right about then, Mac felt the trap close.
Hell, he personally didn’t give a damn. He wanted to meet the fourth man, but he’d lumbered himself with an unknown quantity, albeit a frightened one who trembled like a mouse facing a cat.
All he knew about her was her big gray eyes had made his heart constrict and take pity on her. Bizarre reactions from a guy who hadn’t known he could feel that stupid kind of emotion.
To cap it off, Zukah had failed to mention they would be unarmed guests, though if his head had been on straight he would have realized.
The Algerian waved his pistol around laconically as if directing his foot soldiers was an effort. “Jean-Luc, collect his weapons and, Yves, you can search the woman.”
Comprehension that they were about to be taken hostage had come slowly to Roxie. He caught the first flash of new panic lightening her eyes to silver as she turned, hand tightening on his sleeve while the Algerian concluded his gruff orders to his men with, “Vite, vite.”
If she could read his mind she’d have even more reason to be apprehensive. No way could he allow her to act on the impulse he sensed racing through her.
A moment’s madness on her part could send a month’s work crashing down on him.
This was his game and they’d play it by his rules.
He didn’t have time for niceties, or considering her sensibilities as if she were indeed simply someone who had blundered into a fraught situation, which he didn’t believe for a moment.
He pulled her closer, whispering words as harsh and hard as their meaning in her ear. “Don’t you dare try to escape. They’ll shoot you like a dog and I’ll let them because today’s horoscope said nothing about taking a bullet for a beautiful bimbo.”
So? He wasn’t actually sure about the beautiful, and most likely the bimbo was out of line, but his words had the desired affect.
Her face darkened as he let her go, and now it was a question of which one of them she was more annoyed with, him or Zukah.
Relieved, Mac watched her shoulders straighten as she pulled herself together, instead of hiding her face inside her high-collared coat.
Bottom lip pouting, she lifted her chin. Mac sighed. Looked like he might have whispered the magic words to put some much-needed fire in her belly. Anger suited her better than panic.
About time, too. Mac had never been a great believer in coincidences. Roxie’s arrival at his door couldn’t have been accidental. No woman in her right mind wandered around the back streets of Le Sentier in the dark without a special reason.
But, from the way events were shaping up, it was going to take him a little while longer to discover who she was, and exactly which organization she worked for.
Hell, in Paris there were almost too many to choose from. Though her French was great, when she’d blurted out “Bloody hell!” in that English accent, MI6 had reached top of his list.
No one could call him a two-time loser—he’d been suckered by a woman before—but for the life of him he hadn’t been able to throw this gray-eyed mouse to Zukah’s sleek black cats.
One of whom in particular, Roxie was glaring at now.
Zukah’s years in France were signaled by his typically Parisian shrug. “Don’t look at it as being taken hostage, petite. Think of it as a trial honeymoon.”
Mac muttered a mental “oops.” Zukah might think he was being helpful, but he wasn’t doing him any favors.
The Algerian’s humor didn’t sit well with Roxie. But, for what must be the first time in her life, she kept quiet.
Not because she’d been struck speechless, because she hadn’t a clue what was happening. Playing dumb meant she couldn’t say the wrong thing or have Mac’s lukewarm rescue blow up in their faces.
If she gave in to the urge to run zinging through her, it might be the last impulse she ever acted upon. Though, the differences between being shot or facing a so-called honeymoon with a stranger didn’t seem particularly large.
Neither of them was on her top-ten list